Vijayawada: The state government has undertaken an extensive exercise of distributing student kits called ‘Vidyarthi Mitra kits’ at a cost of Rs 953 crore to over 35 lakh students. To ensure the highest standards of quality, all materials provided to students have undergone a rigorous three-layer quality check by the Quality Council of India (QCI) before distribution.

For the first time, the state has partnered with the QCI to conduct three-stage quality checks, covering raw materials, final production and packaging. Only those products that passed all stages were dispatched to schools. To ensure transparency, ‘Quality Walls’ have been set up at mandal stock points to test and display the kit items.

Government school students across the state are stepping into the new academic year with pride and confidence, thanks to the distribution of the Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Vidyarthi Mitra kits. Spearheaded by education minister Nara Lokesh, the initiative has brought a fresh look to classrooms, along with renewed energy and enthusiasm among students.

Designed to ensure an equal start for every student, the kits include uniforms, shoes, belts, socks, school bags, textbooks, notebooks, workbooks, and Oxford dictionaries — all of high quality and presented in attractive, student-friendly colors.

Significantly, this is the first time that government-provided kits are free from political branding. The kits have been renamed after India’s second President, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. Under the previous YSRCP government, the kits were branded as Jagananna Vidya Kanuka and featured images of the then chief minister. This was widely criticised for exposing schoolchildren to political influence and using government material to do political publicity.

This year, the government has distributed these kits to over 35.94 lakh students from Classes 1 to 10 across government and aided schools. With a total budget of Rs 953.71 crore — Rs 778.68 crore from the state and Rs 175.03 crore from the Centre — each kit is valued at approximately 2,279.

The government has also borne the stitching charges — Rs 120 for Classes 1–8 and Rs 240 for Classes 9–10 — ensuring uniforms are ready to wear.

As part of the initiative each student received three sets of uniform cloth in new colours (olive green pants/gowns and light yellow-green striped shirts), one pair of shoes, two pairs of socks, a belt, and a school bag, textbooks, workbooks, and notebooks, an Oxford English-English-Telugu dictionary for Class 6 students, pictorial dictionaries for Class 1 students and dictionaries in regional/minority languages like Urdu, Tamil, and Odia where needed

With transparent online tenders through the e-procurement system, the government saved Rs 63.80 crore compared to previous years.